We have had some success with the Ravat 34 grape at our location over the past 4 years. Year over year this variety has produced well. It sets fruit well each year except the 2012 year where we had the extreme high temperatures during flowering. Generally speaking this variety struggles to exceed 19-20 brix and it is strong, vigourous and disease free - no spray required at our site. At our location, the grape needs about another week of warm weather to ripen better than what we usually can produce however, even at 14-15 brix this variety already shows strong varietal flavour. Under 15 brix there is some slight herbaceousness - green pepper, but very slight.
More ravat info here
Usually when we pick this variety we find that the must brix is at least 1 brix higher than the brix on the vine. This year when harvested the Ravat 34 in early October it was showing about 14.5 brix on the vine but in the tank the brix was nearly 16. The must also showed 1.1g/ltr T.A and the ph 3.0.
The grapes were crushed and pressed, 25ppm potasium MBS added, chaptalized to 20.5 brix from 16 brix, and fermented with KV yeast until dry at about 22 degrees celcius. After about 10 days primary fermentation had nearly slowed and the wine was transfered from the fermentation vat into a carboy to finish secondary fermentation again at 22 degrees celcius. The secondary fermentation took another 10 days and the wine was racked and another 25 ppm potassium MBS added.
The wine cleared quite fast and it was cold stablized for 4 weeks at temperatures between 0 and -6 celcius and significant tartaric acid crystals precipitated out of the wine.
In the glass, the wine is very nice, honey dew and slight pear aromas, clean tasting, lemon grass with very very slight herbaceousness. Of the most common white wines in production it most closely resembles Sauvignon blanc. This is somewhat at odds with it's parentage which is Chardonnay x Berliandi. What ever the case this is a really nice wine.
